


Take Me Home

by tinee



Category: Feverwake - Victoria Lee
Genre: M/M, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, calix becomes a better person, first chapter is confusing but it makes sense eventually i promise, heavily suggested that you read the traitors crown first, kind of role reversal with noam being the mentor tbh, name subject to change, no telling how long it'll be between chapters i'm sorry, noam fixes carolinia lmao, teen calix not crusty old lehrer, there is a spotify playlist, theyre also the same ageish now, theyre both traumatized, this is entire thing is just me wishing calix had a positive influence in his life, trigger warnings will be at the start of each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27200635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinee/pseuds/tinee
Summary: In 2124, Noam Álvaro is sent on a suicide mission to stop a rogue witching.In 2015, Calix Lehrer meets a boy with a missing past and powerful magic.
Relationships: Adalwolf Lehrer & Calix Lehrer, Adalwolf Lehrer & Raphael | Benjamin Malley, Calix Lehrer & Noam Álvaro, Noam Álvaro/Calix Lehrer
Comments: 50
Kudos: 35





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> TMH playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2k3B65KWnvRBvOX6zskxzd (:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: the hospital, lots of pain, doctors, very vague reference to Noam's mother's suicide
> 
> “He’s awake,” they said, stepping back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you wanna discuss this fic or hear me rant about it DM me on IG @theelectricheir (:

**Calix**

The doctors usually didn’t bother wasting anesthetics on him. 

The suppressants they used made all his senses foggy, like he was underwater, but he could still feel the pain. He could feel every incision they made, every new tube snaking under his skin. And he remembered all of it. The pain was etched deep into the fabric of his mind, terrorizing him even when nobody was touching him.

It wasn’t always like that. When he was first admitted to the hospital, he was almost always hooked up to IV sedatives, except for when they needed him for their research. Eventually, his body grew tolerant to them. Eventually, he stopped fighting. Eventually, they stopped administering the sedatives. Eventually, he didn’t need drugs to feel numb to the pain.

Sometimes, though, he couldn’t help but struggle. That was when they sedated him, but it never lasted long. He always came back just in time for the pain to start brand new.

Through the mind-numbing pain and dull ringing in his ears, he could catch glimpses of conversation between the doctors. What was for lunch that day, how the kids were, how much blood the boy had lost during their last experiment, last night’s episode of Real Housewives. The constant jumble of words meant nothing to his unfocused mind, but he latched onto them like they were his only lifeline. The only thing keeping him sane—if you could call him that.

“Did you hear? They brought in a new patient today,” one of the doctors said. There were hands on the boy’s arms, sharp pinpricks of pain as they adjusted the intravenous tubes embedded in his skin. 

“Really? It’s been months since there was a new one. We’ve been stuck with this one,” someone responded, and flicked the boy’s forehead. He would have flinched away if he had enough energy to move his head. 

“Aw, that’s not very nice, Hennings. This one is plenty fun, isn’t he?”

Laughter from the soldiers across the room. Someone’s hot breath on his cheek as they leaned closer. A hand on his thigh.

“He’s awake,” they said, stepping back. 

The boy didn’t open his eyes. Maybe if he kept them closed, they would go away. Maybe if he just didn’t react, they’d leave him alone.

Of course they wouldn’t. They never did.

Cold latex gloves touched his face, prodding at his cheeks and the metal embedded in them. Pain flared in his mind like flashing red lights; his nerves were on fire. His eyes flew open.

“There he is,” the doctor said with a smile that sent terrified shivers down his spine, patting his cheek once more. “How about we get started?”

**Noam**

There was technology everywhere in the hospital. Computers on mobile nurse’s stations, MRI machines, cellphones in doctors’ pockets that they probably shouldn’t have, security cameras around every corner. 

And Noam couldn’t feel any of it.

After five months trapped in the white halls of the hospital, he could still remember the buzz of magic in his veins. Now, there was nothing. No hum of electricity in the air, no silver-blue magic at the tips of his fingers. Not a single damn thing. 

He could hear the machines beeping right next to his head, reminding him that, unfortunately, he was still alive, but he couldn’t feel them. He couldn’t sense the gears of a doctor’s watch turning with each passing second, even if he could hear the ticking. 

He felt empty.

Hollow.

Powerless.

Sometimes, in the rare moments where he wasn’t too drugged up to think properly, he wondered if this was how Dara felt in those days he spent locked up in his room with suppressants coursing through his blood. If this was how helpless he had felt, unable to do anything but sit there and suffer. 

No. This was so, so much worse.

He felt selfish for thinking that, but it was true. Dara never had to experience doctors cutting into his body, carving away at skin and bone until every nerve was naked and exposed. He never had to listen to nurses discuss him like he was a shiny new plaything when they thought he was asleep. And Noam was glad, in a way, that Dara never had to endure that kind of agony. 

Sometimes, when the pain got to his head and pushed him to the brink of insanity and then just over, he imagined that he could see Dara, standing off to the side as a surgeon tore into Noam’s flesh like he was a piece of meat. He would have this smile on his face that could’ve meant a million different things. Noam could never quite tell if it was sympathy or something worse. He chose not to think about what that something worse could be.

And, in his worst moments, he would call out to him, screaming Dara’s name until his voice was raw. Nurses would glance back over their shoulders at the empty corner and then look back at Noam with a giggle. 

That was worse than the needles and dull scalpels.

It wasn’t just Dara. If he was delirious enough, his father would be there, more lifelike than Noam had ever seen him in the years before his death. His mother, too, purple and green bruises around her throat like blooming flowers. 

Sometimes he forgot that they were all dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my favorite lines from the chapter:
> 
> Eventually, he didn’t need drugs to feel numb to the pain.
> 
> The boy didn’t open his eyes. Maybe if he kept them closed, they would go away. Maybe if he just didn’t react, they’d leave him alone.  
> Of course they wouldn’t. They never did.
> 
> Sometimes he forgot that they were all dead.


	2. I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: memories of the hospital, scars, references to Noam's time with Lehrer during TEH
> 
> “Calix Lehrer. Nice to meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3 stop telling me that my words arent actual words challenge

**Calix**

Calix’s feet were cold. 

There was a vent in the ceiling right over the end of his too small bed in his makeshift room, where his feet stuck out of his too small blanket. Even with socks, he was always too cold to be comfortable—not that he’d really be comfortable either way. There was always something wrong, like when his knees felt too stiff, or when his chest felt like it was caving in and he couldn’t breathe, or when the scars pockmarking his cheeks were—

Calix pushed himself upright in his narrow bed, placing an ancient receipt between the pages of his book and setting it on his pillow. He took off his glasses and tucked them into the collar of his shirt. The ache behind his eyes swelled and faded as his eyes adjusted to the blurriness. He drew his knees up to his chest and propped his chin on them, staring out the window at the icy campus grounds outside.

He really didn’t like thinking about the hospital, but there it was, lingering at the back of his mind.

It had been nearly a month since he’d been rescued, and he still couldn’t stop thinking about it. He tried to ignore the way he flinched when Raphael touched his arm to get his attention, or how he would wake up in the middle of the night with phantom hands holding him still as invisible knives cut into his skin. He didn’t like thinking about it, and he hated talking about it. Sometimes Adalwolf would try to bring it up, but he always seemed to dance around the topic instead of just asking about it, like it was taboo. Calix was good at avoiding those kinds of conversations.

Still, even with all the distractions in the world, it always found a way to worm itself into his thoughts.

He didn’t remember much. Just flashes here and there, needles and scalpels and hands blurring into one big painful nightmare that he couldn’t wake up from. A haze of fluorescent lights and beeping machines. Sometimes he could recall bigger snippets of his time in the hospitals, but there was a certain detachedness there, like he was watching a film instead of reexperiencing his own memories.

Calix didn’t look away from the window when his brother walked in and sat down at the desk. Wolf said something that he didn’t really hear. He probably wasn’t expecting an answer anyway.

Once, the power went out in the hospital. It only lasted a few minutes—a few awful, excruciating minutes—but it gave him a strange kind of hope.

When the electricity went out, Calix could feel a different kind of power in the air. Something silvery-blue and bright, flitting between outlets and lights and racing up wires. It was the first time in a very long time that he had felt that kind of pure, unadulterated energy, unsuppressed and vibrant. Magic.

It was exhilarating to feel that violent power brushing over his skin, expanding through the hospital like an atomic bomb going off. The magic had lingered in the air for days after whoever had caused it was subdued, a residual buzz hovering in the space around him.

Calix sat upright.

“What happened to the others you saved?” he asked, keeping his voice level. Uninterested. “The ones who were in the hospital with me.”

He didn’t miss the way that Wolf’s posture stiffened, the way his eyes stilled on the page he was marking. “Most of them are dead.”

“Most of them? There are still some left?”

Adalwolf frowned and set down the sheaf of papers he held. “One other boy survived, but he’s not exactly…” He seemed to struggle to find the word. “Stable.”

“What does that mean?”

“He refuses to cooperate with the doctors,” Wolf said. “Keeps freaking out, won’t even tell us his name.”

Calix leaned forward. “Where is he?” 

“Calix, no.” Calix frowned and looked out the window over his brother’s shoulder, avoiding his eyes. “You can hardly walk. I’m not gonna let you talk to a potentially violent infected like this. We don’t even know what he can do yet.”

“That’s even more of a reason I should talk to him.” Adalwolf’s scowl deepened. “Wolf. I know what he’s been through. Nobody else here does. Maybe I can get through to him.”

“No, Calix. That’s final.” 

Calix stared at his brother, magic simmering just under his skin. A command poised on the tip of his tongue, something to just make his brother listen to him. His jaw didn’t unclench until the door shut behind Adalwolf and Calix was alone again.

Someone else had survived from the same hospital he had. Someone else who had gone through the same things that Calix had was there, in the same building, maybe just a few rooms away. Someone else who would understand.

Calix left his room after dark. There wasn’t anyone outside his room—he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. A guard, maybe. But this wasn’t the hospital. He wasn’t there anymore. He was out.

Shadows filled the hallways outside, frail light streaming in from yawning windows. It was colder outside his room than it had been sitting under the vent. His socks did nothing against the icy hardwood floors, his toes curling in with every step. Adalwolf didn’t think he’d be needing shoes any time soon. He trailed one hand along the wall, feeling the ridges and bumps pass under his fingers. It almost reminded him of his own skin.

Calix stopped at the first stairwell he came to and closed his eyes. He could feel the knot of volatile gold magic in the pit of his stomach, roiling under his skin like a living thing.

He exhaled and slowly let go of the careful grip he had on his magic.

It wasn’t a quick outburst like he had felt in the hospital, but rather a steady, unraveling expansion, stretching out from that coil of pure power. Calix had forgotten how it felt to let go like that, to feel his magic unwind freely without restraint. He rolled his shoulders back and ignored the twinge in his spine from slouching for so long.

When he opened his eyes, nothing had changed, but everything was different. Even without the active use of magic, he felt more alive than he’d felt in years. It was like taking his first breath again.

Calix made his way downstairs slowly. Every step still sent dull pain shooting up through his heels to his knees, but his legs felt more stable than they had in… years. He held the handrail with a deathgrip. 

Calix paused at the next landing before stepping out of the stairwell into another dark room. There was nobody inside, so he continued making his way through rooms filled with packed boxes of books and dust. His legs ached and it was long past when he should’ve been asleep, but he didn’t really care. He was used to late nights and sore limbs.

Someone that he didn’t recognize stood in the backlit doorway of the next room. Calix stopped, wondering if they had noticed him, and the person looked up, stared at him with an expression he could only describe as curious disgust, and walked away. He watched their silhouette fade away into the background as they left with some strange kind of urgency. 

Calix almost followed them down the hallway, but he hesitated in front of the doorway they had just been hovering in. The overhead lights were off like the rest of the library, but there was a table lamp lit up on the table in the corner of the room. A boy was sitting in the middle of the small pool of light, a book open in front of him and two more stacks pushed off to the side. Calix silently watched him. His hair was uneven like Calix’s, dark auburn and choppy. His head was bent low over the open book, so Calix couldn’t see his face. He watched the hand that the boy used to flip the page, his eyes latching onto the white scars snaking out of the cuff of his hoodie sleeve beside the sharp black X tattooed between his thumb and forefinger.

**Noam**

He knew it was coming. He should’ve, at least.

2015 was exactly like the stories Lehrer had told him during late night conversations, but it was so much different to live in it. When he realized where—or when—he was, he should’ve run. He should’ve left the United States—which was still mostly intact, to his constant astonishment—the second he figured it out and not looked back. Instead, he was caught using magic like an idiot.

When he realized who had rescued him from the hospital, he probably should’ve just killed himself then and there. It would’ve been a better end than dying in a war that happened a century ago. Instead, he played along and let Adalwolf Lehrer’s doctors manhandle him. 

Maybe he should’ve told someone the truth—the whole truth, about where he was from and how he got there and what was going to happen. They’d probably have thought he was crazy, but maybe not. Maybe it would’ve helped. Instead, he stayed silent. 

He probably should have made some kind of plan beyond ‘don’t let everything go to shit’. Oh, well.

And, maybe more than anything, he should’ve known that Lehrer was going to find him eventually. 

Noam didn’t look up when he heard the man assigned by Adalwolf Lehrer to watch him walk away, or when he felt Calix Lehrer’s looming presence in the doorway. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his tall frame—though not as tall as he remembered. He kept his head bent and kept turning pages, even though he had stopped paying attention to the words the second he noticed Lehrer. The air between them felt tense, too thick to breathe. He wondered if Lehrer felt that same heaviness, or if it was just him.

“What are you reading?”

Noam should’ve been ready. He wasn’t.

“Beyond Good and Evil,” he said, keeping his eyes trained diligently on the book. “Nietzsche.”

“I’ve read it,” Lehrer said. His accent was less pronounced than he remembered. Noam heard steps across the room, then the scrape of a chair on wood as Lehrer sat down across from him. “In the original German, too.”

Noam closed the book with one hand and looked up. “Really?”

He should’ve been ready for the mess of scars that made up teenage Lehrer’s face. Lehrer—the Lehrer that he knew—had told him about them, but Noam couldn’t have ever imagined something as… he couldn’t even think of a word to describe it. He’d seen his own scars from the hospital, but he’d never imagined that Lehrer’s could be much worse than that. But that—the line of scars pulling from the corners of Lehrer’s mouth to his ears, the red marks curving across his temples and the bridge of his nose? It was horrific.

Keeping his face carefully neutral was probably easier than it should’ve been.

“My first language,” Lehrer said with something that might’ve been a reserved, shy smile on anyone else, but Noam knew better. Something like disgust twinged in his gut.

He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had seen the Lehrer that had mentored him, the Lehrer whose bed he had shared, but sitting there then, that all felt so far away. This wasn’t the same man that weaponized the virus and killed thousands of people. Noam knew that if he walked away now, he would be walking away from the chance to change the course of history.

“I’m Noam,” he said after a moment, forcing himself to look Lehrer in the eye for the first time. They were pale blue and framed by wire glasses, but Noam couldn’t help seeing the same eyes with small wrinkles and slate grey irises. He wondered when his eyes had changed—if it was a natural thing, or if Lehrer had done it on purpose when he got rid of his scars.

“Calix Lehrer. Nice to meet you.”

Noam wasn’t going to let him become the Lehrer he had known.

**Calix**

“Lehrer? Like—”

“Adalwolf?” Calix wrinkled his nose. “My brother.”

The boy, Noam, tilted his head curiously. “Do you not like him?”

“No, of course I do,” Calix said, looking away. He didn’t like the look that Noam gave him. It felt like his eyes were searching for something that wasn’t there, looking for answers when there wasn’t a question. It reminded him of too many people. “He can be kind of controlling, sometimes. He’s been keeping me locked up in my room since...” 

He hadn’t ever said it aloud.

When he looked back up, Noam had a strange sort of expression on his face, and Calix had the aching urge to know what he was thinking. 

“St. George’s,” Noam finished for him. It felt like a heavy pressure had been taken off of his throat, knowing he didn’t have to say the words. 

Calix didn’t like talking about the hospital. That much was a fact. But here, sitting in the dead of night with someone who had gone through the same things he had, it felt like all of his old pain was going to come spilling out if he wasn’t careful. He kept his tongue between his teeth, a constant reminder not to say more than he needed. This was still just a stranger, and he had no reason to trust him.

“How long were you there?” Calix said quietly when the silence began to hurt, studying his face. He didn’t have the same kind of facial scars that Calix did, but he had expected that. Calix was odd, a dangerous abnormality. Infected at two years old, an unusual power that most people had never seen before. Noam probably wasn’t anything like him—most people weren’t.

“I’m not sure,” Noam said. His gaze darted up from the scars pulling at the corners of Calix’s mouth, like he had been caught doing something he knew he shouldn’t have. “Five or six months, maybe.”

Calix reached out across the table towards his arm, but he stopped when he saw the way that Noam tensed.

“Sorry,” Noam said immediately, almost like a reflex. Calix frowned.

“Don’t apologize. You did nothing wrong,” he said, putting his hands back in his lap. Noam stared at him with a look that he couldn’t quite describe, and Calix had to wonder whether it was the hospital or something else that made him react like that. 

Calix played with the collar of his sweater, pulling it up over his mouth to hide his cheeks. It was something he’d done when he was younger, too, just an idle fidget, but after the hospital he found himself covering his face more and more, even when he wasn’t thinking about it. He let the fabric drop back down as he imagined his mother slapping his hand and telling him in German to stop fidgeting. Noam’s eyes followed his movements.

Calix started to say, “How old are y—”

“Calix.”

He twisted in his seat, frowning. Adalwolf stood with his arms crossed in the doorway, the person that Calix had seen earlier standing behind him.

“Wolf,” Calix said in the same tone. 

“Don’t,” Adalwolf said, jerking his head to the side. “Let’s go.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but the look on his brother’s face had him standing up and following Adalwolf out before he could think twice. Calix paused in the doorway and looked back, but Noam was reading his book again like nothing had happened. 

Calix didn’t say anything until they were back in his room. His legs were shaky and tired, even though he had only walked up a few flights of stairs. He felt disgustingly fragile.

“Why can’t I talk to him?” Calix asked after he got situated in bed, sitting with his back to the wall and his feet hanging over the side of the bed. Adalwolf’s mouth pressed into a thin line as he frowned.

“We’re not discussing this tonight,” Wolf said, turning to leave. “We’re both tired, this isn’t the time. Get some sleep, Calix.”

“You think I’m weak,” Calix shot at him. Adalwolf stopped where he was and turned back around, a heated look in his eyes that almost made him regret what he had said.

“Yeah, I do.” Calix swallowed, forcing his anxious hands to sit still. He had almost forgotten what his brother looked like when he was angry. “Do you even hear yourself? You needed my help to walk up the stairs, Calix. That’s not exactly strong. If you could see what you looked like, you’d think you were weak, too.”

Calix stared unflinchingly at his brother’s face. He wasn’t going to let those words hurt.

Then, like a switch had flipped, the fire in Adalwolf’s expression died. 

“Calix…” His eyes were soft now, some kind of genuine affection in them that made Calix feel sick. “I’m just worried about you. You know that, right? I’m your brother. I just want to keep you safe, and that boy could be dangerous. He—”

“Noam isn’t dangerous,” Calix cut in.

“And how do you know that?”

He stayed silent.

“Go to bed, Calix,” Adalwolf said softly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i was gonna list all my favorite lines but there were too many of them. if y'all want to you could comment your favorite (: pleaseineedtheserotonin
> 
> i would like to point out that during this line—  
> Calix paused in the doorway and looked back, but Noam was reading his book again like nothing had happened.   
> —noam was actually internally freaking out. like full mental breakdown yk


	3. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: references to the hospital, scars, Noam's time with Lehrer, and Noam's mother's suicide
> 
> Noam hadn’t been a kid in a long time.

**Calix**

Adalwolf’s lecture didn’t stop Calix from sneaking back down the next day after Raphael brought him his breakfast. It was warmer than it was the night before, but he wore thick socks anyway. His entire outfit was too baggy on him, but it hid the scars well enough. Most of them, at least.

He stopped at the first landing he came to, but when he looked down the hallway, there wasn’t anyone there. He made sure to check inside the room that he had found Noam in, but the table lamp was off and the stack of books on the table was abandoned.

Back in the stairwell, he followed the sound of echoing voices to the ground floor. He ignored the steps that descended farther into the ground and stepped out into a large room. The voices were just around the corner, but Calix stopped where he was. 

“They’re having a meeting,” Noam said quietly. He was sitting with his legs crossed on the floor, hands folded in his lap. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Calix said, not really a question.

“Neither are you,” Noam countered. He stared at Calix with a scrutinizing sort of look before nodding to the floor beside him. “You can sit, if you want.”

“Where’s your bodyguard?” Calix said, sitting a comfortable distance from Noam. He drew his legs up to his chest and slouched over them, resting his chin on his knees.

“You mean my babysitter?” Noam snorted. Calix hadn’t noticed the night before, but he had a strange sort of accent—southern, like most people in the area, but there was something else that Calix couldn’t identify. “Your brother wants all his men present. Kind of a major oversight, in my opinion.”

“Adalwolf can sometimes miss the bigger picture,” Calix said, smiling softly. He frowned and sat up. “How do you know I won’t tell him about this?”

Noam straightened up too and met Calix’s stare. The hard look in his eyes suddenly made Calix want to shrink back, so he tilted his chin up and returned the look.

“Will you?” Noam said, like a challenge. 

Calix’s mouth felt dry. 

Noam stood up before he could answer.

“Meeting’s over early,” he said, looking towards the doorway. Calix hadn’t even noticed the other room go silent. “See you later.”

“Calix?” Adalwolf stood in the doorway to the other room, his arms crossed. Calix looked back toward the stairwell, but Noam was long gone by now. “I told you to stay in your room. What are you doing down here?”

Calix frowned. “Actually, you told me not to talk to Noam. You never said I couldn’t come downstairs.” 

He didn’t tell Adalwolf that he hadn’t followed those instructions either.

“Don’t be an ass, Calix. You knew what I meant. You should be in bed resting,” Wolf said.

“I heard voices. Is the meeting over?” Calix said, stretching his legs out. His head bumped against the wall behind him.

“No,” Adalwolf said. He didn’t elaborate. “Go back to your room. Do you need help?”

“I want to come to the meeting,” Calix said, ignoring the question. 

“What? No.”

Calix noticed the way that Wolf reacted to his words, like he had been expecting it to be magically charged. 

“I’m going insane in that room, Wolf. I’ll stay quiet, but I can’t stay up there anymore.” He pulled his best pretty-please-for-your-baby-brother look, and apparently it worked, because Adalwolf sighed and shook his head defeatedly.

“Fine. You can sit in. But don’t speak, and don’t be a distraction. We’re working.”

Wolf held out an arm to help Calix up from the floor, and together they walked into the meeting room. A crowd of at least forty people all quieted as their attention was drawn to the brothers.

“My brother,” Adalwolf said, “Calix.”

**Noam**

Noam pulled the book he had been reading in front of him but didn’t open it, staring at the front cover without really seeing it.

His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. He wondered how Lehrer hadn’t sensed it—maybe he hadn’t mastered that kind of power yet.

What a weird thing to think, that there was something Lehrer couldn’t do. After growing up hearing about him as some sort of living legend, and then seeing that power up close and in person, it was almost too bizarre an idea to even consider. But there wasn’t that aura of gold magic that always surrounded him like a shroud, and he seemed a lot weaker physically too—thin limbs and a hollow face from years in the hospital. And as far as Noam could tell, he hadn’t tried to use his power on Noam once—not that it would’ve worked, with Noam’s Faraday shield in place.

Calix Lehrer wasn’t invincible. 

Noam stared at his hands, at the white lines covering them. He couldn’t even remember where half of them came from—couldn’t remember the names of the doctors who did that to him. He didn’t know how that made him feel, or if he felt anything at all. 

There were footsteps coming down the hallway, but Noam didn’t look up. It had to be the guard whose name he could never remember—this was the same routine that they went through every day for the past month. The guard would leave for a meeting with a warning to stay put, then Noam would sneak down and eavesdrop before dashing back upstairs as soon as it was over. Noam still didn’t know how all of them expected him to just stay in his little corner unguarded while they were having a meeting. Clearly he was their first prisoner.

Except there was something different about these steps. Heavier. A longer stride. After a moment, two more pairs of footsteps joined them, and Noam tightened his grip on the book in his hands. The room he was confined to was near the center of the library, so there were no windows he could jump out of even in a worst case scenario. There was only one entryway into the room, which led into the hallway that they were coming down. He could fight if he needed to, but it had been months since he used his magic like that. He didn’t know if he’d be able to take on three witchings, even unskilled ones.

Noam’s power jumped between his fingertips, ready for the worst.

“Noam, right?” Adalwolf Lehrer said, standing in the doorway between Noam and the only way out.

Shit, shit, shit. He must’ve seen the holes in his plan to keep Noam put, must’ve figured out that Noam was eavesdropping on the meetings, must’ve been told by Lehrer. Noam couldn’t believe he’d actually trusted he wouldn’t rat him out to his brother for a second.

No, not trusted. That wasn’t what it was. 

Hoped. 

“Surprised I know your name, huh? Not like you were any help with that,” Adalwolf said with a grin and a glance over his shoulder at his companions that told Noam he thought he was funny. He had dark brows and hair, a stark comparison to his brother. Lehrer had once told him that when they were younger, Adalwolf suspected they didn’t have the same father, but Noam could definitely see the similarities between them. They had the same nose, the same eye shape. “My brother told me.”

“Your brother?” Noam said flatly, like he didn’t already know who he was talking about. 

“Calix. You met him last night,” Adalwolf said, crossing the room to sit across from Noam in the chair that Lehrer sat in the night before. He was a little taller than Noam, so Noam sat up straighter and rolled his shoulders back. Noam could sense a gun on him, but it wasn’t loaded. Noam didn’t have to look to know that one of the others was his usual guard—he could tell from the gun and the old phone in his back pocket. The other one Noam didn’t recognize, but they didn’t have a gun, so he didn’t risk looking away from Adalwolf to check who it was.

“Here’s the deal, _Noam,_ ” Adalwolf said, arching his fingers together in an obvious attempt to look powerful. He had a little bit more of an accent than his brother; if Noam remembered correctly, he came to America with his family when he was fourteen. “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but you stay away from my brother. Unless you’re planning on cooperating, you’re not going anywhere near him. Actually, no—you stay away from him regardless. Got that?”

Noam could see what Lehrer meant during those late nights in 2124 when he said that his brother could lose a grip on his emotions. He looked close to catching fire; Noam wouldn’t be surprised if that happened, actually. 

“Noam Álvaro, Level IV. Presenting power technopathy. Gryffindor. I’m a Leo,” Noam said with a slight smile to cover the panic he felt. Adalwolf looked like he’d been slapped in the face—clearly he hadn’t been expecting Noam to actually cooperate.

“Level IV? The fuck is that?” Adalwolf said after a moment. Noam blinked.

Shit. Fuck. Shit.

“It’s a nickname.”

What the actual fuck. A nickname? Noam was an idiot.

“Fucking weird nickname,” Adalwolf said. “You got any family left?”

Noam breathed in and held it for six beats before letting it out. 

Did he have any family left? His parents were gone. His… he didn’t even know what Dara was to him anymore. Boyfriend? Ex? It didn’t matter, anyway. No matter what he called him, he was gone—Noam knew that much. But what about Bethany? Ames? Even Taye—did he consider them family? 

But just like with Dara, it didn’t matter. They weren’t there, so they were as good as dead.

“No,” Noam said. 

Adalwolf’s features softened into what was probably a sympathetic look, but maybe his face just wasn’t built for that, because Noam thought he looked constipated. 

“How old are you?” he said.

Technically? Somewhere in the negatives.

“Seventeen,” Noam said instead, his fingers flexing around the book in his hands. Adalwolf looked down at it, his eyebrows raising.

“Is that what all you kids are into these days?” Adalwolf muttered under his breath. “Calix reads the exact same books.”

“Is that all, or…?” Noam said. He glanced toward the other two people waiting in the hall for the first time. One he already knew was his glorified babysitter, but the other— Holy shit.

Noam recognized him in the same way that he had recognized either of the Lehrer brothers—from pixelated photos in history textbooks and old newspaper clippings from years before his time. 

In eighth grade, Noam’s history class had this project during their catastrophe unit. Each student was assigned one of Adalwolf Lehrer’s Avenging Angels to make a baseball-style trading card of. They were supposed to research both the person and the angel that they were named after. Noam remembered everyone fighting over who was going to get Calix Lehrer—Azriel, the Angel of Death. 

Noam never ended up finishing his project. That was the year he dropped out to take care of his father. Still, he remembered the name of the man he was assigned. Benjamin Malley, Adalwolf’s right-hand man. Raphael. The Healer.

When he’d first woken up after the hospital, none of the doctors were familiar to him. Noam guessed that Raphael, trusted by both the Lehrer brothers, was helping with the younger Lehrer’s much more extensive treatment, just like the old Lehrer had told him had happened. He remembered hearing stories about how the first thing Lehrer had done when he had woken up was threaten the doctors with scalpels. He wondered if Raphael had been in the room when that happened, if he had to hold a knife to his own neck against his will. It must’ve been terrifying, to not have any control over his actions. Noam knew exactly how that felt.

“Right,” Adalwolf said suddenly, clearing his throat, like he had forgotten where the conversation had been going. “Noam Álvaro, presenting power technopathy.” Then he paused, pressing his lips together. “Technopathy?”

Noam wondered if he was actually dumb, or if technopathy really was a rare power. “Control of technology.”

“Seems useful,” Adalwolf said. “How good are you?”

Noam considered his Level IV training, his extra lessons. Coding past government firewalls. Finding his way into Calix Lehrer’s personal files.

“Pretty good.”

Possibly an understatement.

“Anything else? You got any of those flashy secondary powers?” Adalwolf asked. Noam had forgotten that regulated witching training wasn’t instated until 2021. Most witchings could probably only use their presenting power, unless they happened to be particularly adept at picking up new skills, like Lehrer.

Noam wondered how powerful that made him by today’s standards.

“Technopathy is heavily tied to electromagnetism. By extension, telekinesis,” Noam said. There were more, but he held his tongue. If worse came to worst, he would at least have a few tricks left up his sleeve. 

“Well, shit,” Adalwolf said, in an impressed kind of tone. “How old were you?”

Noam guessed he meant how old he was when he was infected. 

“Sixteen.”

“ _Shit,_ kid.”

‘Kid.’ He couldn’t remember the last time anyone called him that. With his status as Lehrer’s new prodigy, nobody dared refer to him like that in fear of word getting back to his mentor. 

He wasn’t really a kid anymore, anyway. Hadn’t been since the hospital. Hadn’t been since that first night in Lehrer’s bed. Hadn’t been since he shot Tom Brennan, since he woke up in the Red Ward, since he found his mother’s body. 

Noam hadn’t been a kid in a long time.

“Uriel,” Raphael said from the doorway. Raphael? Benjamin? Ben? Noam didn’t know what to call him. He’d called Adalwolf by his codename, which Noam found interesting. Were they just not as close as he’d thought from Lehrer’s stories, or was everyone like this? Awfully impersonal, but he supposed that was just how things like this were.

Adalwolf immediately stood up to step out into the hallway. Noam thought he was rather like a dog, the way he jumped up for Raphael without hesitation. Wasn’t Adalwolf supposed to be the leader here?

Noam couldn’t hear what they were discussing in hushed voices out in the hallway, so instead he focused on trying to remember the other guy’s name. It started with a J, probably. Or maybe it was an L?

“Noam, is it?” Raphael said, sitting in the seat Adalwolf had just been in. He had a soft, worn-out smile that made him look older than he was. “Hi. I’m Raphael.”

Noam just looked at him. Adalwolf was leaning against the doorway now with the expression of a kicked puppy; Noam wondered what they had been arguing about in the hallway to make him skulk like that.

“You know what we do, right?” Noam felt like Raphael thought he was an elementary-aged child. He was seventeen, not seven, goddammit. 

“You’re a witching militia,” Noam said. Everyone knew who the Avenging Angels were in his time. Even if he didn’t, the doctors had told him when he first woke up.

Raphael nodded. “We’re fighting for the rights of people like us everywhere in America, and, well, we could always use more assistance.”

The words tasted funny in his mouth as Noam said with a coy smile, “What are you saying?”

He remembered a conversation exactly like this that took place almost a year ago, or maybe it was a hundred years in the future. He didn’t bother trying to figure that one out.

“You gonna join us or not?” Adalwolf said, pushing away from the wall. Apparently he got tired of the slow pace of the conversation.

“You need witchings. When the doctors said I was joining the militia, they didn’t make it sound like a choice,” Noam said. For a second, he was back in the government courtyard, a nervous little kid sitting next to the acclaimed Minister of Defense. He almost laughed, but Adalwolf and Raphael wouldn’t see what was so funny.

Adalwolf’s brow furrowed. “There’s always a choice.”

Noam waited, but nothing followed. No carefully crafted words to trick him into saying yes, no “my preferred choice”. No manipulative bullshit.

“I understand,” Noam said, just like that first day in the courtyard, but this time, he really did. He knew exactly what he was signing up for, and he was ready for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant believe im actually finishing these in time for a regular weekly update im astounded by my own willpower


	4. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: vague references to the hospital
> 
> ‘Infected’. Not witching, but infected. 

**Noam**

Raphael woke him up at seven in the fucking morning.

“Good morning,” Raphael said, as if it wasn’t just barely light outside. No morning was good if it involved being awake before eleven at the earliest, but Noam didn’t say that. He was used to getting up before the sun rose, so this was nothing for him. Still, it didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

“Uriel wanted me to brief you on some things before the meeting today,” he said, sitting in the chair across from Noam. Noam rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Raphael squinted at him behind his glasses. “Do you sleep in here?”

Noam shrugged. 

“By your own choice, or Uriel’s?” Again, Noam shrugged. He wasn’t terribly sure, if he was honest. A mix of both, maybe. Raphael sighed and shook his head, saying under his breath, “He really needs to discuss these things with me.”

He cleared his throat and sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders. “Anyway. My name is Benjamin Malley, but you can call me Raphael. We all go by codenames here. You already know Uriel. That’s Adalwolf Lehrer, our leader.”

Noam coughed to cover his laugh. “Nice theme you got going there.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Raphael smiled and adjusted his glasses. “Uriel was the only one who liked it at first, certainly, but I think it’s fitting, don’t you?”

Noam didn’t really understand the point of the theme, but he liked it well enough. Angels sent from—well, God, maybe, or perhaps somewhere with a little less light. Was that what witchings were, then? Mortal angels? Noam wasn’t sure if he liked that thought.

“Uriel… angel of flame?”

“Repentance, technically. He prefers the first definition, though,” Raphael said with a smile. He adjusted his glasses again, and Noam guessed that they weren’t actually crooked. It was the same thing Noam’s dad used to do when he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

“And Raphael—angel of healing, right? You some kind of a doctor?” Noam asked, although he already knew the answer.

“Yes, I used to be,” Raphael said. He held up his hand, gesturing to the black X on his skin. “But, well.”

“So when do I get an angel nickname?” Noam said only half-jokingly, veering away from the topic of witchings. His own tattoo burned, and he resisted the urge to scratch it. Raphael peered at him over his glasses.

“You’re seventeen, right?”

Shit. Maybe he should’ve lied about that. He forgot that in 2015 America, he wasn’t even a legal adult until eighteen. In Carolinia, he could legally drink by his seventeenth birthday.

“Uriel doesn’t care about age, of course,” Raphael continued, shaking his head. “Let his brother sit in on yesterday’s meeting. He’s only fifteen, you know. I mean, it’s not like he’ll be going on missions anytime soon, but still.

“No, I think the thing Uriel’s most concerned about is whether he can trust you.” He rolled his eyes. “Not a very trusting person, our Uriel.”

“I can tell,” Noam said.

“In any case, I don’t know how soon it’ll be before you get a codename. They’re self-assigned, but Uriel has to approve them first. We mostly use them for missions, but Uriel’s started making us use them all the time.” He fixed the white collar of his shirt. “Anyway, you can take that up with him later. Oh, that’s right. He’d like you at the meeting today.”

“I know.” Had he forgotten that that was what he was supposed to be briefing Noam on?

“Right, sorry,” Raphael said. “So. Right now we’re planning for an attack on the CDC building in Atlanta. It has all of the records on the infected, so Uriel wants to, and I quote, ‘bomb them to Hell and back.’ Can’t say I disagree with getting rid of the records, but his methods have always been a bit… questionable.”

‘Infected’. Not witching, but infected. 

“Sorry, by the way, about him. He can get a little heated when it comes to his brother. Awfully protective, that man.”

Noam remembered the way Adalwolf had looked a second away from killing someone while he was talking about his brother. It reminded him a little too much of Lehrer when he got pissed.

“I can see that,” Noam said. He knew the feeling, even if he didn’t have anyone that was to him as Lehrer was to Adalwolf.

“Did you have any siblings yourself?” Raphael said, leaning back in his chair. Noam shook his head.

“The meeting?” he prompted.

“Ah, right!” Raphael pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose one more time, and now it looked like they were sitting just a little too high. “Well, the thing is, Noam, while Uriel wants you there at the meeting, I’ve a feeling that it’s mostly to keep an eye on you. Since he doesn’t trust you, it’s not likely that he’ll appreciate any of your suggestions. He definitely won’t take kindly to you having any better ideas than him. I figure it’s best if you just sit back and stay quiet, at least for a little while, or there’s a pretty good chance he’ll get frustrated and send you out.”

“Should you be talking about your leader like this?” Noam said skeptically. Lehrer didn’t like him talking bad about him when they were together, and he couldn’t imagine his brother was much different. 

Raphael snorted. “We all bully him. Sometimes he even deserves it.”

**Calix**

Wolf fetched him for his first full meeting a little before noon. He trailed behind his brother down the stairs, trying to ignore the way that Wolf threw worried glances over his shoulder every few seconds, like at any moment Calix was going to collapse. 

Raphael met them at the bottom of the stairs, falling in line with Wolf.

“That Noam kid is waiting in there,” Raphael said to Adalwolf, low enough that Calix could barely hear him. Calix looked up and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I talked to him this morning and walked him down here. He agreed to sit in the back and just listen, like you suggested.”

So Noam was coming to the meetings now, too? Interesting. What had happened to Wolf’s violent distrust toward him? He hadn’t said anything to Calix about it, certainly. Calix huffed and stuck his hands in his pockets; at least now he would have someone to sit with.

Noam sat in a folding chair under a stained glass window in the back corner, his legs crossed at the ankle. He had a book with him, but Calix couldn’t see what it was from across the sprawling room. The rest of the room was empty so far. He looked up when they walked in.

“Noam,” Calix said, pulling a hand out of his pocket in greeting, but Adalwolf caught his wrist and tugged him to his side. 

“You’re sitting with me,” he said, heading toward the front of the room. Calix yanked his arm back and scowled, but he still followed his brother and sat in a chair against the wall right behind Wolf. Suddenly he wished he had thought to bring a book like Noam had.

Soon everyone else came pouring into the room, and Calix felt them all looking at him, even if they tried to hide it. He also saw the looks they gave Noam not so surreptitiously, and the way they avoided the area he was sitting in when they took their seats. That was interesting, certainly. So that “unstable” reputation Wolf had spoken of preceded him, did it? Calix wondered if they talked about him the way they did Noam.

Everyone’s attention was on Wolf the second he cleared his throat. Calix knew he had always been the leader type—he wasn’t a follower, that much was certain—but he’d never commanded a room the way he did now. 

He couldn’t see anyone so obviously looking at him anymore, but Calix still felt eyes burning into his head. Pulling his feet up on his chair and wrapping his arms around his legs, he turned his head to stare at Noam. Noam stared back for a few seconds before looking back down at his book.

Calix tried to pay attention to the meeting. He really did.

Maybe he should give them the benefit of the doubt, given that none of them had likely planned an act of war before—except maybe Israfil, who looked old enough to have fought in the first World War—but their ideas were awful. None of them had anything useful to add about the CDC mission they were planning, and they just kept repeating the same tired concepts everyone had already said. 

If Adalwolf just asked him, he could give a million different suggestions. A fresh perspective.

But he didn’t, and those blooming ideas of genius shriveled and died as he sat quietly.

Eventually the conversation moved on to other topics, things that Calix didn’t care nearly as much about. His mind was stuck on the CDC problem like a fish on a hook.

He knew exactly how he’d do it, of course.

It wasn’t that hard to figure out. All he needed was fifteen minutes alone with a list of everyone’s powers and a floorplan of the building to puzzle out exactly how they could take it down. 

Calix could see it all laid out in his mind like words on a page. How they’d get in, how they’d get the bombs that Adalwolf insisted on using in place, how they’d light the fuses. Naturally he’d do all the talking, but then there would need to be the people in charge of the bombs and probably an escort into the building, since he was only fifteen. Noam could probably fit somewhere into the plan too, even if he wasn’t exactly sure where yet. He’d figure it out.

Four meetings later, they still hadn’t made any progress.

As promised, Calix sat in the back and bit his tongue whenever he wanted to say something. He took his cue from Noam and started bringing books, but he never got much reading done before he got distracted again by something else in the meeting. There was so much he wanted to say, but Wolf would probably rip his head off if he did. 

Despite his newfound freedom to come and go as he pleased, Calix felt like Wolf’s leash on him had only gotten tighter. When they weren’t at a meeting, Wolf would spend more time sitting in Calix’s room with him than he did when they were kids and shared a room. (Wolf had always hated that arrangement. He was eight years older than his brother, and in his opinion, he shouldn’t have to share a room with a baby. He moved out of that room when Calix was almost four.) If it wasn’t Wolf sitting in that wooden chair at the foot of Calix’s bed, then it was Raphael. He hadn’t talked to Noam since before that first meeting, or even seen him around anywhere except in the meeting room. 

It wasn’t all bad, of course. The library here had a lot better of a selection than his old middle school library. There wasn’t much else to do, but it was alright. Better than sitting in his room, at least. 

“I want to read the newspaper,” Calix said after Wolf walked him back upstairs from a meeting. He’d wanted to ask after that first meeting, but his brother had immediately started lecturing him on loitering around the library, so he had figured it wasn’t a good time to ask. Wolf glanced at him, frowned in a subtle sort of way, and looked back down at the map he was plotting random points on.

“Sure, I’ll have Raphael bring it up later,” he said. 

Calix picked at his nails. “You don’t understand. I want a paper from every day I’ve missed. All four years.”

“That’s a lot of paper,” Wolf said, folding the map in half. Calix stared at the overlap where the edges of the paper weren’t lined up properly.

“This is a library, they must have microfiche,” he said, reaching out to fix the map.

By dinnertime, Calix had finished reading through the papers from the past week that Adalwolf had brought him, and he slipped out to find the microforms after Raphael left with an empty plate. Wolf said he didn’t know where it would be, so he was left to find it on his own. The lights were still off in the room he’d first met Noam in when he walked past. The pile of books was gone now too.

He descended into the lower levels of the building and crossed a hallway into what he was pretty sure was technically another connected library. There were rows of filing cabinets meticulously labeled, a film of dust on top from months of disuse since the militia took over. 

Every headline was worse than the last. He frowned as he turned the knobs of the microform reader, shifting from article to article about wars and terrorists and massacres. His head started to feel fuzzy from staring at the machine for so long, so he took off his glasses and tipped his head back, closing his eyes. 

“How long have you been down here?” someone said behind him. Calix shot upright, his throat tight. He hadn’t even realized he had fallen asleep. Wolf would be livid if he knew how late Calix was up each night.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” Noam said, sitting in the swivel chair next to Calix. He got the feeling that that was a lie.

Noam squinted at the microform. 

“‘August 17th, 2013,’” he read from the screen. “That was… a while ago.”

Calix just nodded. His throat still felt uncomfortable and too tight to speak, like there was something blocking it. He pulled at the collar of his turtleneck, forcing his breathing to regulate, and shoved his glasses back onto his face. 

“Your brother let you start coming to the meetings, huh?” Noam continued. “Me too. I mean, I was always invited, but, well, y’know.”

He really didn’t know, which was incredibly frustrating. His brother didn’t tell him nearly as much as he should about anything.

“‘Infected Zone Covers Montana.’ Damn,” Noam said. “I have no idea where that is.”

Calix didn’t smile, but he wanted to. His face felt tired, like even crying would be too much strain. Noam might as well have been talking to empty air.

“When’s the last time you slept?” he said suddenly, as if he was just now seeing Calix fully. Calix saw the way Noam held himself at a distance, the way Adalwolf did when they talked about uncomfortable subjects. He acted how Calix imagined a therapist would, concerned but distant because it’s their job, nothing more. Did Raphael ask Noam to check on him?

Calix shrugged noncommittally, his voice still lost somewhere in his chest.

“Is it, uh—” Noam cleared his throat, looking down at his hands. “Nightmares?”

He didn’t look at Noam. He was suddenly uncomfortable with the very idea that someone else knew so intimately what it was like to have gone through what he had. It felt like, even though they’d only spoken a few times, Noam knew the inside of his mind better than Calix himself.

Noam didn’t say anything else, and they fell into a sort of silence that was only a little uncomfortable. Calix went back to scrolling over microfiche images, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and Noam watched him. 

Noam stood up when Calix started yawning. “You should get to bed.”

“It’s not that late,” Calix said, and his voice felt light. He hadn’t noticed the tight feeling in his throat fade, but he almost missed it.

“It’s past three,” Noam said, looking up at a wall on the clock that Calix hadn’t even noticed. 

“You sound like my brother,” Calix muttered under his breath, standing up and stuffing the microfiche back into their labeled envelopes. He noticed for the first time that Noam was a little taller than him, if only by a couple inches. One of the only people he’d met since getting out that was taller than Calix was Wolf, and they’d both gotten their father’s height. When Wolf had seen how tall he’d gotten during his time away, he’d said that if Calix grew any more, he’d have to start wearing heel inserts. He couldn’t stand the idea of his baby brother being taller than him.

Which was understandable, really. The last time Wolf had seen him, he wasn’t even five and a half feet tall at twelve years old. Now, at fifteen, he was already just over six feet tall. The doctors used to call him a freak in all aspects.

“Maybe your brother is right,” Noam said, holding the door open and flicking out the lights as Calix passed him. Calix just rolled his eyes.

“I can find my way back on my own,” he said dryly. He couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that Raphael had asked Noam to check on him, or perhaps even Wolf, grudges aside.

“I know that,” Noam said, trailing behind him down the hallway. Calix paused at the base of the stairs. If his legs decided now would be a good time to stop functioning properly like they sometimes did, he was sure Noam wouldn’t drop it. “You good?”

“I’m fine,” Calix snapped, but almost regretted it when he saw the way Noam’s whole body tensed. He didn’t apologize, though, just looked down and concentrated on making his feet land solidly on each step. Noam followed, his steps a beat slower than Calix’s, just out of sight, though Calix felt his gaze on the back of his head. 

Calix didn’t trust him. That childish feeling from when they’d first met, that elation from knowing that someone understood what he went through, had worn off, and he was more on edge than ever. Sure, some part of him may still want to smile whenever he ran into Noam, but there was something off about him that Calix didn’t like. It was a feeling buried deep in his chest, like—

“Shit, are you okay?” Noam stood over Calix, who cradled his arm to his chest and scrabbled for the railing to pull himself upright. He’d missed a step, his foot catching on the edge of a stair and sending him tumbling like an idiot. 

“I’ve got it,” Calix hissed, rejecting the hand that Noam offered him. His legs felt like they were going to buckle again at any second.

“Sure you do,” Noam snorted, but he didn’t make any other move to help Calix. 

Calix stumbled again and swore under his breath, grabbing the rail with both hands. Noam took Calix’s arm without saying anything and pulled it over his shoulder for support, and Calix didn’t fight against the arm holding him up around his waist. He didn’t like it, but he probably wouldn’t be able to make it up the stairs without help, and Noam was the best there was at the moment. Calix balled his fist in the shoulder of Noam’s shirt. 

“You’re light,” Noam commented at the top of the stairs. Calix scowled and pulled away, smoothing down the wrinkled sides of his sweatshirt. Noam stuck his hands in his pockets and watched him, a curious look on his face. It was unsettling.

“Good night,” Calix said, a little colder than he meant to, but Noam followed him down the final hallway to his room. 

“Sorry,” Noam said, though Calix wasn’t sure what exactly he was apologizing for. Fortunately he stopped in the doorway, because Calix didn’t want to have to force him out if it came to that. He wasn’t sure how he’d measure up going toe-to-toe against Noam—he didn’t even know what his power was.

Calix stared at him for a minute, glanced behind Noam at the darkened hallway, and then looked back at him. He frowned at the earnest look in his eyes.

“Good night, Noam,” he said again, softer now, and shut the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took an insanely long time but i will not apologize for prioritizing school applications over fanfiction writing
> 
> calix cant decide if he has a massive crush on noam or if he hates him lmao
> 
> ALSO YEAH I STOLE A LINE DIRECTLY FROM CHAPTER 19 OF TFK(the one where noam finds out about dara’s telepathy) BUT REPLACED IT WITH CALIX AND NOAM. WHAT ABOUT IT HUH??
> 
> note: all TMH scenes are 10x better if you imagine noam internally screaming at all times
> 
> up next: noam gets in a fucking fist fight with adalwolf lehrer
> 
> (just kidding, obviously.)
> 
> (well. maybe.)


End file.
